Chibuihe Obi, a writer with Brittle Paper who has been missing since
June 1, according to some Twitter users, was kidnapped for “spreading
Satanism”. One user said the writer who lives in Owerri was kidnapped
over his last article on homosexuality.
Chibuihe is well known for his essays on LGBTQ-themed poems.
Here
is an excerpt from his last post on Brittle Paper detailing the
previous threats and attacks he and others have been faced with.
‘It
is over a year now since we started publishing LGBTIQ-themed poems.
Threats have been coming. Thick-brained humans come to your Facebook
inbox and write long sermons peppered with hate and warnings. They’d
tell you to get ready for them. One asked Romeo (Oriogun) to send him
some money or he’ll send policemen after him. Another actually reported
him to his superiors. One Sunday evening in April, Romeo contacted me to
say that someone has reported him to the police near his new post. The
officers called to inform him that they’d be at his post to arrest him.
Although we were able to avert the purported arrest, because it was
baseless and out of question, the threat, the harassment, was
psychologically draining to Romeo.’
‘Last August, a random number
left a message in my WhatsApp inbox. There was something curious about
the name which made me ignore the content of the message. But I have
stopped making public my locations on social media. I register my
presence long after I have left the place, and if there is need for
that. I try to keep my movement discrete. This way I have been able to
forestall any premeditated attack.’
‘Romeo ignored this, made light the threats and, last week, he was attacked.’
Romeo
was the winner of the 2017 Brunel International African Poetry Prize.
He won the £3,000 for his “beautiful and deeply passionate” writing on
masculinity and desire in the face of LGBT criminalisation and
persecution.
